Over pancakes and omelet’s, Canadian songstress Shiloh and videographer Corey MacGregor talked with me about influences, ranches, video making, and karaoke—with Paula Abdul, really…Paula Abdul.
I am really taken by the range of songs in terms of style. How would you classify what you do?
Shiloh: That’s tough. I guess I would call it country music. That’s what I seem to be writing these days. So, yeah, I guess “country” fits.
Your bio is intriguing—you couldn’t get any more “country!”
Shiloh: (Laughs) Yeah. I grew up on a ranch. There wasn’t really a town—just other ranches. Then we moved to a small town in British Columbia—about 600 people—and we lost our ranch and moved in to town. So I took a waitressing job and started writing songs.
So how did you get started singing?
Shiloh: (Laughs) I had one of those little karaoke machines. The kind you can sing along to. I had a tape that had a song on each side and one side had Paula Abdul. So I sang along.
Your song “Whiskey and Rum” has the line “sitting here drinking my whiskey and rum and I’m listening to Patsy Cline.” The song has a definite traditional country feel to it. Are you influenced by Patsy Cline or other traditional country singers?
Shiloh: Yeah. That’s the stuff I remember hearing growing up.
Who else would you say is an influence?
Shiloh: Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, and Lucinda Williams.
So how does a song come about for you?
Shiloh: They’re all different. Some songs I’ve had for 10 years and they may never be “finished”. Some start with a melody and I’ll work that part out on the guitar and then the words and then sometimes I’ll have an idea for a song and the music comes later.
On your album there’s a song “My Favorite Cowboy” and you indicated it’s about your dad. Tell me about that.
Shiloh: I guess it’s really about forgiveness and forgiving my Dad. I mean, there were some problems and he sort of tuned his back on the family. But things are better. And, he’s a real full on cowboy.
So tell me about “Hell in the First.”
Shiloh: I had this little thing I was messing around with on the guitar and it sounded sort of…swampy…so I kind of went with that.
And the lyrics?
Shiloh: I thought I’d like to write a song, kind of a horror story, from the victim’s perspective and I just took it from there.
The video is really great. The twist at the end is completely unexpected.
Corey: It’s that horror movie idea. They always have some big twist at the end. So that’s what we did. It’s completely low budget.
Shiloh: Yeah, the most expensive thing was the beer we had to buy. We shot the performance part of it in our friend’s basement and the rest in Stanley Park.
Corey: Yeah. The sea wall starts down there in the park and we were riding our bikes back along the path. Shiloh was covered in fake blood and riding her bike and these little old ladies kept asking if she needed help.
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